European War History

The untold history of a top-secret operation in the run-up to D-Day in which American flyers and Allied spies carried out some of the most daring cloak-and-dagger operations of World War II. In 1943, the OSS—precursor to the CIA—came up with a plan to increase its support to the French...

The beginning of modern Europe was a time of confusion, excitement, suspicion, hope, despair, and ideas. It was a time of a lot of change spread out over just a few hundred years, but the end result was a completely different world than the one that had come before it. This audiobook includes details of the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern era, where Europe saw significant shifts across the continent in phases.

“Captures the essence of Naval Special Warfare from our storied beginnings to the current fight.” —Admiral WILLIAM H. McRAVEN Written with the unprecedented cooperation of the Naval Special Warfare community, this vivid and definitive history of the U.S. Navy SEALs reveals the inside story...

Set in Calcutta, London, the glacier-locked wilds of the Karakoram, and on Everest itself, The Last Englishmen is also the story of a generation. The cast of this exhilarating drama includes Indian and English writers and artists, explorers and Communist spies, Die Hards and Indian nationalists, political rogues and police informers. Key among them is a highborn Bengali poet named Sudhin Datta, a melancholy soul torn, like many of his generation, between hatred of the British Empire and a deep love of European literature, whose life would be upended by the arrival of war on his Calcutta doorstep.

Arriving as a fresh US Army Air Forces pilot in New Guinea in late 1942, Richard Bong wasted no time taking on the Japanese, shooting down two planes in an early skirmish—an action that earned him a Silver Star. Over the next two years, Bong would amass the US armed forces’ most impressive record of aerial victories of the entire war, surpassing even the great Eddie Rickenbacker’s World War I tally and notching forty kills. In December 1944, he was personally awarded the Medal of Honor by General Douglas MacArthur.

Battle Hardened: An Infantry Officer's Harrowing Journey from D-Day to VE Day tells the story of an American soldier's growth from a Second Lieutenant eager to prove his worth in battle to a skilled and resolute commander over the course of the Northern European Campaign. Craig Chapman delves deep into the personal recollections and mental state of Bill Chapman as he fought against the Nazis, enduring frontline combat and witnessing horror on a massive scale.

The Hundred Years' War: A Captivating Guide to One of the Most Notable Conflicts of the Middle Ages and in European History and the Life of Joan of Arc contains two captivating manuscripts in one audiobook: The Hundred Years’ War: A Captivating Guide to the Conflicts Between the English House of Plantagenet and the French House of Valois That Took Place During the Middle Ages and Joan of Arc: A Captivating Guide to a Heroine of France and Her Role During the Lancastrian Phase of the Hundred Years’ War.

In the darkest days of World War II, an unlikely civilian was sent to deliver a letter from Washington to General MacArthur in New Guinea. Eddie Rickenbacker was an icon, a pioneer of aviation, the greatest fighter pilot of the First World War, recipient of the Medal of Honor, who’d retired to become a renowned race car driver. Now in his fifties, one of the most admired men in America, Rickenbacker was again serving his nation, riding high above the Pacific as a passenger aboard a B-17. But soon the plane was forced to crash-land on the ocean surface, leaving its eight occupants adrift.

David Headley, the American Pakistani also known as Daood Gilani, lived a double life. One day he would stroll through Central Park in his tailored Armani suit as a true New Yorker, and the next he would browse in the bazaar in Lahore wearing traditional Pakistani clothes. One day he would drink champagne at the most extravagant clubs; on another he would prostrate himself in prayer in remote Pakistan and pledge fidelity to Allah.

Amidst all of the criticisms of America's war in Iraq, one essential voice has remained silent . . . until now. In his groundbreaking new memoir, Wiser in Battle, LTG (Ret) Ricardo S. Sanchez, former Commander of Coalition Forces in Iraq, reports back from the front lines of the global War on...

Less than 21 years after the end of the First World War, the Second World War broke out in September 1939 when, on the third day of that month, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany, which had invaded Poland two days earlier. The Second World War would last for nearly six years (although some historians consider the war to have started in Asia in 1937), and all of Europe was ravaged.

A bold new history of Europe, from ancient Greece to the Russian invasion of Ukraine What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe, award-winning historian Roderick Beaton tells the story of Europe as never...

The eminent historian John Keegan charts Churchill's career, following his steadfast leadership during the catastrophic events of World War II while England was dangerously poised on the brink of collapse. With wonderful eloquence, Keegan illuminates Churchill's incredible strength during this crucial moment in history and his unshakable belief that democracy would always prevail.

A Times, Financial Times and Telegraph Book of the Year 2023 'Illuminates some of the great trends of our time' - Gideon Rachman, Financial Times 'Vivid, urgent and unsettling' - Tom Holland, author of Dominion _____ What does it now mean to call yourself European? Who makes up this population...

This powerful Cold War novel tells the story of two cousins, one German and the other an American Army brat, as they navigate the political and social turmoil that threatens their friendship and ends in the abrupt rise of the Berlin Wall–which may separate them forever. Drew is an army brat, a...

The secret history of one of the largest—and least-known—rescue operations of World War II Between 1940 and 1943, a group of Polish diplomats in Switzerland engaged in a wholly remarkable—and until now, completely unknown—humanitarian operation. In concert with Jewish activists, they...

An extraordinary lost chapter in the history of World War I: the story of America’s year-long invasion of Russia, in which a contingency of brave soldiers fought the Red Army and brutal conditions during the fall and winter of 1918–1919. In August 1918, the 339th regiment of the U.S...

At the end of 1941, it seemed to many people, especially in Germany, that the war was virtually over. Some began to consider what a postwar Europe would look like after a Nazi victory. With nothing to stop them, the Nazis became the most rapacious looters of art the world had ever seen, to the extent that it has been estimated that the Nazis may have acquired up to 20 percent of all art in Western Europe. Some works were returned after the war, many disappeared, and still others have become the subject of intense speculation.

The author of Britain at Bay—which The Wall Street Journal said may be “the single best examination of British politics, society, and strategy [from 1938 to 1941] that has ever been written”—picks up his sweeping social history in 1942, when what was once a regional war has become an...

A top literary historian illuminates how books were used in war across the twentieth century—both as weapons and as agents for peace We tend not to talk about books and war in the same breath—one ranks among humanity’s greatest inventions, the other among its most terrible. But as...